Not Coming Out
by The Tystie
Summary: Julian can't bring himself to tell Miles what's bothering him. An expanded version of the scene at the end of Hippocratic Oath.
**Not Coming Out**

SUMMARY: Julian can't bring himself to tell Miles what's bothering him. An expanded version of the scene at the end of _Hippocratic Oath_.

SPOILERS for "Hippocratic Oath" and "Dr Bashir, I Presume" as well as minor mentions of things that happened in several other episodes.

TIMELINE: End of Episode 4, Season 4.

NOTES: To jog any sluggish memories, _Hippocratic Oath_ is the episode in which the Jem'Hadar capture Julian and Miles, and Julian tries to cure them of their addiction to Ketracel White. At the end of the episode, once Miles and Julian are out of danger, they have a brief conversation in which they appear to agree to disagree over their conflicting actions and opinions.

DISCLAIMER: Paramount and CBS own Star Trek. I am making no money from this.

-=o=-

 **Not Coming Out**

Over an hour (an hour and thirteen minutes and twenty-five...twenty-six...twenty-seven seconds, to be exact) had passed since they had left Bopak III. In all that time, Julian and Miles had barely said a word to each other beyond, "Standby for take-off", "Course laid in", "Initiating thrusters", and, "No sign of any other ships in the vicinity", and now, as the runabout headed towards the edges of the Bopak system, they were locked in an uncomfortable silence.

Julian closed his eyes and found himself thinking about the Jem'Hadar. When he had first learned about them, Julian had found the Jem'Hadar abhorrent, nauseating, pitiable and compelling. But that was before he had met Goran'Agar. Now his thoughts were even more complicated because Goran'Agar had given Julian the chance to look beyond the genetically programmed killing machine and to get to know one of the beings beneath.

Goran'Agar had been exceptional, not only because he hadn't needed the White, but also because he hadn't needed the Founders and he had been able to exercise free will.

Julian had been fascinated by Goran'Agar because, if a Jem'Hadar could stray so far away from the norm, what might that say about Julian, himself? Goran'Agar hadn't been a stereotype, just as Julian wasn't the embodiment of the genetically enhanced nightmare that humans were brought up with.

Julian knew what being genetically enhanced was supposed to mean. But he wasn't another Khan. He hadn't been damaged by the procedures he had undergone. He was the Goran'Agar of human Augments.

At least he hoped he was.

Julian became aware that they were now leaving the star system. Miles had set the course towards the wormhole and was in the process of putting the runabout onto autopilot.

Under any other circumstances, Julian would already have let his mouth run away with him, heedless of decorum. When he had first arrived on Deep Space Nine, he had both amused and annoyed his colleagues with his unthinking chatter. He cringed as he remembered his first meeting with Major Kira and how he had tactlessly wittered on about frontier medicine. Not long after that, he had found himself having to ask Miles, "Do I annoy you?"

Over time, Julian had learned to temper his compulsive need to speak. However, he still had a reputation for talking too much and about the wrong things and, while that reputation had possibly lingered for longer than the worst excesses of his behaviours warranted, he couldn't deny that it had still some basis in fact.

Thus, his current silence felt jarringly wrong, even to himself.

A fragment of imagined conversation played in Julian's head.

What if he said to Miles, _"I saw aspects of myself in Goran'Agar. I...admired him"_?

No. He couldn't say that. Miles would ask why, and Julian knew that, no matter how much he wanted to, he wouldn't be able to explain.

These days, when he needed to confide in someone, the person he would normally turn to was Miles. For example, when Elizabeth Lenz had visited the station and she had failed to recognise him, Julian had told Miles _all_ about it, and then he and Miles had got drunk together. Drunk or sober, Miles's friendship meant the world to Julian, and Miles's advice, curt though it tended to be, was usually pertinent and helpful.

Julian respected Miles and relied on him far more than Miles probably realised.

Right now, though, no matter how much Julian wanted to talk to Miles, he couldn't because Miles was a large part of the problem he wanted to talk about.

For the first time since they had become friends, Miles and Julian had fallen out with each other, and Julian, who had far more experience of falling out with people than with making up afterwards, wasn't sure what that meant.

Julian had fallen out with his parents, back when he'd first found out about his enhancements. He had barely talked to them since, at least not about anything important; these days, they talked just enough to keep up appearances, and no more. Then there had been Palis Delon, his fiancée. Just before he had graduated from Starfleet Academy their relationship had suffered its inevitable and irrevocable breakdown.

Both fallings out had had their roots in his genetic background, the first because of what his parents had chosen to have done to him, and the second because Julian hadn't felt able to tell Palis about it. Palis had sensed that he was keeping secrets and, when the allure of being with a mystery man wore off, she had accused him of not trusting her—which, to be fair, he hadn't. In the end, his silence had destroyed his relationship with Palis every bit as much as his desire for adventure.

Julian's falling out with Miles was different...wasn't it?

How could he and Miles reconcile after such a fundamental difference of opinions? Was reconciliation even possible? Julian wasn't sure.

Julian had assumed that his disagreement with Miles stemmed from Miles's failure to respect Julian's judgment and his consequent unwillingness to follow orders. Certainly that had been the trigger, but maybe the argument ran deeper than that.

Whatever the cause, the results were clear. Julian and Miles weren't talking. In fact, they were barely able to look at each other, and Julian felt all churned up inside.

Miles's friendship had meant so much to Julian, far more than his failed romance with Jadzia, his literary get togethers with Garak, or his casual relationship with Leeta. As Miles had grown first to tolerate and then to like him, Julian had learned to feel comfortable in his company.

Julian wasn't feeling comfortable now.

He risked a sideways glance at Miles's profile.

Julian liked to be liked. He needed to be liked. He needed the reassurance of being liked. Maybe that made him immature and insecure, and perhaps he shouldn't let other people's opinions matter quite so much, but somehow Julian couldn't help himself.

If Julian couldn't be liked, then he would settle for being needed. Accepted or respected would be good, too. Best of all, though, would be a combination of all of them. Being needed and accepted and respected and liked...that would help Julian to believe that he was the kind of person that he aspired to be, and not the kind of person he all too often feared he was.

Julian felt his gut knot. How would Miles see him, if Miles knew the truth? He sighed. He'd been tempted to tell Miles the truth about himself for a while now, but how could he start a conversation about something as awkward as... _that_?

 _"Miles... I need to tell you something. Something nobody else knows. Nobody except..."_

 _"Julian? What is it?"_ said imaginary Miles.

 _"I... It's difficult."_

 _"It's okay. You can tell me anything."_

At that point, Julian's imagination ran dry because Julian couldn't believe that the words imaginary Miles had said could possibly be true.

If Julian told Miles about his background, would Miles still see Julian, or would he only see the monster?

Julian felt sick. He shook his head jerkily. No. He couldn't tell Miles his most closely guarded secret. He wished he could, but wishes were nothing more than dangerous, empty dreams.

As he and Miles had grown closer, the more Julian had wanted Miles to know about his genetic background but the harder it had become for him to say anything. The possible consequences were too terrible to contemplate.

Julian leaned back in his chair, tried to ease the tension building in his shoulders, stifled another sigh, and tried to think about something—anything-else.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, his thoughts returned to the Jem'Hadar.

Ever since Julian had learned the truth about their origins, he had felt strangely and sickeningly fascinated. They were the physical manifestation of his nightmares, genetically engineered killing machines who lacked all of the compassion and sympathetic emotions that humans treasured so highly. The Jem'Hadar were the physical embodiment of why humans feared genetic engineering and enhancement. They even looked like the monsters of human legends and fantasies.

Julian could never confess—not even to his closest friends—that the Jem'Hadar had been created to be exactly the kind of monsters that Julian feared lay lurking just beneath his consciousness. He didn't dare admit that, when he looked into the face of a Jem'Hadar, he saw all his nightmares reflected back at him.

The Founders, on top of genetically programming the Jem'Hadar to do their will, had added the failsafe of addicting them to Ketracel White. The Jem'Hadar had been created to believe and follow the Founders and then they were further coerced to obey by dint of their addiction. The Jem'Hadar were biological slaves. Created, manufactured, monstrous, genetically engineered slaves.

It was always dangerous for anyone in the Federation to show any unusual interest in genetic engineering. It would be doubly dangerous for _Julian_ to show such interest. Thus, Julian was loath to draw attention to the fact that he was intrigued by the genetic engineering that had produced the Jem'Hadar. The most he dared do was to suggest that he pitied the Jem'Hadar because they had no choice in how they acted.

Julian risked another sideways glance at Miles. Miles was facing forwards, jaw clenched, tense and silent.

Was Miles still angry with him?

Julian assumed he was, because Miles's anger surely mirrored Julian's own, and Julian's anger, warring with frustration and grief, burned hotly inside him. Perhaps the words Miles wanted to say were, like Julian's, ricocheting around inside his head, half formed, confusing, and stubbornly refusing to break free.

Then again, perhaps not, because Miles was a straightforward kind of chap, and he didn't have Julian's emotional baggage. Miles probably didn't even have a frame of reference that he could use to understand the hurt and fear that held Julian back from speaking his mind.

Julian heard another fragment of conversation echoing inside his head.

 _"You don't understand!"_ said Julian's inner self.

 _"Damn right, I don't understand,"_ said imaginary Miles. _"They're our enemies. They're monsters. And you wanted to help them!"_

Yes, Julian had wanted to help.

If he set his mind to it, he could probably convince everyone else that he had worked so hard to find a cure to the Jem'Hadar's addiction because of his Hippocratic oath or because the intelligence that he had been gathering would be of immense value to the Federation. He might even be able to live with the guilty knowledge that he had been driven by intellectual curiosity, the Jem'Hadar's predicament providing him with an enticingly challenging puzzle to solve.

Julian tried to find a truth that was palatable enough to be spoken and that might garner at least partial understanding.

 _"The Jem'Hadar... They were created to be addicted to that drug."_

In his mind's eye, Miles nodded his reluctant agreement.

Thus encouraged, Julian said, _"They're sentient beings. And Goran'Agar—"_

 _"Was an aberration. The exception that proves the rule. They're not natural."_ As imaginary Miles continued, Julian could feel heat flushing his cheeks. His hands grew clammy. _"They're genetically engineered. Monsters. Nothing good can ever come from genetic engineering. Look at human history."_

Julian shuddered and pushed the thought away.

Julian wanted Miles to know the truth about himself. He wanted everyone to know. And, if he had more courage...less to lose...more certainty about how Miles and the others would react, then...maybe... But he knew that, once he revealed the secret, there would be no way of taking it back, and he felt nowhere near to being able to cross that point of no return.

Julian's thoughts had come full circle. So much for thinking about something different!

It would be wonderful to have his genetic status out in the open and accepted, but that was just a dream. A fantasy. The whole scenario flew in the face of the law, of society, of human culture and belief.

The Jem'Hadar were enemies of the Federation, but Goran'Agar had been different. Julian had found in Goran'Agar someone to respect. Maybe, in another time and place, they could have been friends.

Maybe, but probably not. After all, Goran'Agar had captured them, threatened them, and coerced them. He had forced Julian to work for him. So, at what point had Julian gone from being Goran'Agar's unwilling prisoner to being a willing accomplice?

But...Goran'Agar's intentions had been good, hadn't they? He had won Julian's trust and Goran'Agar had deserved to be helped.

Hadn't he?

Hadn't all the Jem'Hadar? They deserved Julian's pity, his sympathy and his compassion, because it wasn't their fault that they were the way they were.

But had there been darker, more personal, motivations at work that explained Julian's willingness to help?

Had the real reason—the one he could never admit to aloud and that he could barely bring himself to consider, even with the privacy of his own thoughts—been that he had wanted to cure the Jem'Hadar because that would show the universe as well as himself that these genetically enhanced beings were, when stripped of the Founders' influence, benign? In seeking to vindicate them, had he been seeking to vindicate himself? If the drug dependent Jem'Hadar, who had their thoughts and beliefs imprinted into their genetics, could be freed from the Founders' control, how much easier would it be for the Federation—for Julian himself—to believe that he, too, could be freed from the shackles of his manipulated nature?

Julian wanted to believe that he could rise above his status, and, most of the time, he almost managed to. But, if he had cured and tamed the Jem'Hadar, the shame and the lingering shadows of doubt that haunted his nightmares and made him unable to confess the truth about his background would have been dispelled, once and for all.

So, perhaps his work had been driven by a selfish desire to help himself rather than any more altruistic attempt to benefit the Jem'Hadar or the Federation. Or, perhaps all those things had influenced him, a complex knot of motivations that couldn't easily be unpicked.

And then...

Miles had destroyed his makeshift laboratory, and Julian had been left with...with what? Bitterness? Anger? A sense of betrayal? With the taste of lost opportunities and shattered hopes sour in his mouth?

Now, as he and Miles sat in silence, there were so many things Julian wanted to say and even more things that he didn't want to feel. He wished he knew how he could stop thinking and hurting and doubting.

Miles was his best friend, yet Julian could never reveal his whole self in case Miles turned away...told the authorities...brought Julian's life crashing down about his ears.

But, even more than about what might happen to him, Julian cared about what Miles thought of him. He was scared that, if Miles knew the truth, Miles would see and treat him differently. Julian was scared that Miles might not understand that the only thing that had changed was his knowledge about Julian, not Julian himself.

As always, silence was the safest option, even if Julian hated himself for it, because wasn't silence it's own kind of lie?

Julian hated the invisible walls of prejudice and fear that separated him from everyone else.

Goran'Agar had been braver that he. At least Goran'Agar had tried to do something about _his_ situation.

Back on Bopak III, Julian had tried to explain that to Miles. Or maybe Julian had simply been trying to justify the unjustifiable. But Miles hadn't listened, or, if he had listened, he hadn't heard.

Julian glanced sideways again. The muscles in Miles's jaw were no longer quite as bunched and tense as before. Was that a good or a bad sign?

Miles's failure to listen was another reason why Julian was hurting. Julian was the senior officer, but Miles never seemed to take that seriously. He didn't take _Julian_ seriously. Miles, the experienced soldier, forgot all about the chain of command where Julian was concerned.

But then, maybe that was Julian's fault, because Julian invariably followed Miles's lead during their leisure time. Plus, Julian was inclined to behave in a more relaxed manner than might be expected of a career officer.

As he felt his hurt rising, like bile up his gorge, Julian turned his eyes forward again. Beneath his hurt lay anger at Miles for disobeying him and failing to respect his point of view and at himself for caring so damned much about the unfairness of everything.

When Miles spoke, his voice made Julian start.

"You can bring me up on charges, you know." After so much heavy silence, the words sounded painfully loud in the confined space.

Julian had to force his teeth to unclench and to remind his body how to speak. The few words he managed to squeeze out sounded as though they had been spoken by a stranger. "That's not really my style."

Miles said, "I wish things could have been different, Julian."

"So do I." More than that, Julian wished things were different now and could be different in the future. But he didn't see how any of that was possible. Things just were.

"And I'm...sorry...I had to destroy your work."

Miles's apology sounded sincere. Maybe it was.

Julian closed his eyes.

Miles had destroyed his equipment, but Miles hadn't destroyed everything. Julian remembered every detail. He could visualise the chemical formulae and the physiology of the Jem'Hadar. He could picture every experiment, every datum...the make-up of Goran'Agar's blood...hormones...cellular structure...metabolism...

He was carrying all that knowledge with him back to Deep Space Nine, where he would be able to feed it into the station's computer. Then he would be able to model...research...calculate... He promised himself that he would use that information to work out how the Ketracel White provided the Jem'Hadar with both sustenance and mental stability. In time, he would find the answers that he hadn't been able to unearth on Bopak III.

But it was all too late for Goran'Agar, wasn't it?

Even if Julian could reconstruct much of what had been lost, that wasn't the only issue here, was it? It wasn't even the most important.

Julian could hear his bitterness as he said, "You didn't have to, Chief. You had a choice, and you chose to disobey orders, override my judgement and condemn those men to death."

"Yes. I did. Because I thought it was the only way to save your life. Whatever else you may think of who I am and what I did, at least try to understand that."

Julian struggled to reconcile the idea that his life mattered to Miles...that _he_ mattered to Miles...he _still_ mattered...with everything else that had happened. Then Julian heard himself say, "Tonight's supposed to be our weekly darts game."

"Don't worry. I don't feel much like playing, either." There was a wealth of understanding in Miles's words, and Julian felt perversely reassured that maybe Miles felt as conflicted as he did.

"Maybe in a few days." Julian almost smiled, and Julian knew from the expression on Miles's face that he'd reacted inappropriately or unexpectedly. His almost smile...the implied forgiveness... They were too quick. Too easy. No wonder Miles looked confused. There was no way Miles could know that Julian's automatic smile was a mask, just like so much of Julian's life was a mask. Julian wore his ready smile and affable manner like a disguise, hiding so much of what he felt and thought. They were the person he tried to be, not the person he feared he was.

Julian looked away from Miles, turning his eyes forward, and felt his smile fall away.

Julian needed Miles in ways that Miles's couldn't begin to understand and that Julian knew he could never admit to. He also knew that, in order to keep Miles in his life, he would have to bend and adjust and compromise.

Julian had so much that he wanted to say, but he knew that he'd say none of it. He knew that he'd sink back into the status quo, because it was the safest thing to do. That might chafe. It might take time. But loneliness, self-preservation and—despite everything—a genuine regard for his closest friend demanded it.

-=o=-


End file.
